From Swedenborg's Works

 

Secrets of Heaven #724

Study this Passage

  
/ 10837  
  

724. The symbolism of seven each as what is holy has also been demonstrated [§716]. Here, though, it symbolizes holy truth, which is holy because of its origin in goodness. There is no such thing as holy truth except for the truth that comes from goodness. We can speak all manner of truth from the Word and so from memory, but unless love (love for our fellow humans) is what brings it to our lips, it can by no means be described as holy. If love and charity are indeed the qualities that bring it forward, on the other hand, we then acknowledge and believe what we are saying, and so it comes from the heart.

The case is the same with faith, which so many people claim is the only thing that saves. 1 Unless love or charity is what gives rise to faith, it is not faith at all. Love and charity are what consecrate faith. The Lord is present in love and charity, not in faith separated from them. Detached faith has our own selves at its core, and in us there resides utter filth. When we separate faith from love, what we privately seek in speaking is either to hear ourselves praised or to profit monetarily. 2

We can all recognize this phenomenon from our own experience. When an individual claims to love another, to prefer that other to anyone else, to acknowledge that other as more noble than anyone else, and so on, and yet thinks otherwise privately, that individual makes such a claim with the lips alone, denying the words at heart and sometimes even mocking them. People do the same with faith. Here is something I have come to know extremely well from frequent experience: Some of those who most hate the Lord and persecute the faithful in the other life are people who preached about the Lord and faith during bodily life with such eloquence and such a devout facade as to astound their listeners, although they were not speaking from the heart.

Footnotes:

1. Swedenborg here refers to the Protestant doctrine of the justification by grace through faith alone. The doctrine holds that God forgives people's sins and saves them from damnation through the grace he bestows because of their faith, not through any merit they have won by doing good works for others; it was particularly, though not exclusively, held by Lutherans. For further discussion of the doctrine by Swedenborg, see True Christianity 355-377 (and also his 1763 work Faith 44-72); for a recent, brief overview adding significant historical nuance, see Erwin 2006, 90-92. [SS]

2. This was written in a time and place in which the outward show of piety was a prerequisite for public office and a career in the church could be quite lucrative. The subversion of religion for private advantage is a prevalent theme in Swedenborg's theological writings (see, for example, Secrets of Heaven 2027:3, 2261:2, 2329:1, 2354:2, and Revelation Unveiled 784, 799, to mention just a few passages), though it is often stated obliquely, as here. [LHC]

  
/ 10837  
  

Many thanks to the Swedenborg Foundation and its New Century Edition team.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Apocalypse Revealed #799

Study this Passage

  
/ 962  
  

799. "For your great men were the merchants of the earth." This symbolically means that those higher in the Roman Catholic hierarchy are of such a character because they use their various prerogatives, including ones left to their discretion in the regulations of their order, to buy and sell and make material gains.

The great men mean those higher in the Roman Catholic hierarchy, those called cardinals, bishops and primates. They are called merchants because they use the sanctities of the church as merchandise by which to make material gains (nos. 771, 783) - here those who use their various prerogatives, including ones left to their discretion in the regulations of their order, to buy and sell and make material gains.

The reason we say this is apparent from the foregoing declarations, for this follows as a consequence of them. In the foregoing declarations we are told that the sound of harpists and musicians, flutists and trumpeters, shall not be heard in Babylon anymore, that no craftsman of any craft shall be found there, that the sound of a mill shall not be heard there, that the light of a lamp shall not shine there, and that the sound of a bridegroom and bride shall not be heard there; and these symbolically mean, as may be seen above, that in Babylon there will be no affection for spiritual truth (no. 792), no understanding of spiritual truth and so no thought of spiritual truth (no. 793), neither any inquiry or investigation into it (no. 794), nor any enlightenment or perception of it, and so no conjunction of goodness and truth, which is what forms the church (no. 797). The Roman Catholics described lack these things because those higher in rank also buy and sell and make material gains, and thus furnish those lower in rank with their examples. This then is why we are told, "For your great men were the merchants of the earth."

[2] But perhaps someone will say, "What are those additional discretionary prerogatives which can be used as merchandise?"

They are not their annual incomes and stipends, but the dispensations they make by the power the keys give them, namely, their forgiving of sins, even heinous ones, and using this to liberate from temporal punishments; their interceding with the Pope to be able to marry people within degrees of relationship prohibited by law, and to put an end to marriages within degrees of relationship not prohibited, and allowing these themselves without interceding by acts of toleration; their granting special privileges that lie within their power to grant; their use of the power to ordain ministers and confirm them; their use of the gifts they receive in general and in particular from monasteries; their appropriation of revenues from other sources which belong by right to others; and many other things.

These, and not their annual incomes, if they are content with them, cause them not to have any affection for or thought of spiritual truth, any investigation into or perception of spiritual truth, or any conjunction of truth and goodness, because they are the quests of unrighteous mammon, and an unrighteous person continually lusts for natural riches and turns away from spiritual riches, which are Divine truths drawn from the Word.

[3] It can now be seen from this that the declaration, "For your great men were the merchants of the earth," symbolically means that those higher in the Roman Catholic hierarchy are of such a character because they use their various prerogatives, including ones left to their discretion in the regulations of their order, to buy and sell and make material gains.

To this we will add here something more about using the power of the keys to grant dispensations over the commission of crimes, even heinous ones, by which to liberate the guilty not only from eternal punishment, but also from temporal ones, and if they are not liberated, still to protect them by giving them asylum.

Who does not see that this does not fall within ecclesiastical authority, but rather civil authority? That it is to extend ecclesiastical government over everything secular? That it serves to destroy public trust? And that by this power still reserved for them they have the power to bring back their earlier despotic dominion over all the law courts established by kings, thus over the judges, even the highest of them - something they would also do, if they did not fear people's leaving the church.

This is what is meant in Daniel by the fourth beast that came up from the sea and its thinking to change the times and the law (Daniel 7:25).

  
/ 962  
  

Many thanks to the General Church of the New Jerusalem, and to Rev. N.B. Rogers, translator, for the permission to use this translation.